'Middle-of-the-night
black, moonlight white and cold gray have never been so eerily
orchestrated as they are in Staake's superb drawings for his
chilling tale, 'The Orb of Chatham'. Your eyes will feast and
your skin will crawl."

An idyllic village
and quintessential New England town, its aura, beauty and nautical
location only add to its mysterious appeal .

Geography

Chatham, Massachusetts
is located at the southeast tip of Cape Cod. If the Cape is viewed
as a bent arm, Chatham is at the elbow. To the east is the Atlantic
Ocean, to the South is Nantucket Sound, to the north is Pleasant
Bay. The only adjacent town (located at both the north and west
town line boundaries) is Harwich. Major geographical features
of the Town are hilly, wooded uplands, extensive barrier beaches
and spits, harbors, numerous small estuaries, and salt and freshwater
ponds.

Mainland features
are the result of glacial action during the last Ice Age and
consist of ridges, knobs (hills), outwash plains, and kettles
(depressions and ponds). Several ponds formed by melting glacial
ice have become salt ponds because of rising sea levels. The
Town's coastal dunes and beaches have been formed through thousands
of years of erosion of scarps (cliffs) and movement of the material
from the north and west.

Strong Island in Pleasant
Bay marks the Town's northern boundary. Morris and Stage Islands
mark the extent of developed area on the south. The Red River
is the boundary on the west and the Muddy Creek (or Monomoy River)
on the northwest. The highest point (131 feet) in Chatham is
"Great Height", long a landmark for vessels offshore.

History

In 1606, Samuel
de Champlain, the first European known to have explored the area,
encountered the Monomoyicks, a Native American tribe of about
500-600 members. The topography he mapped and described is still
recognizable, as are the varieties of plants, fish, shellfish,
and game birds. The Monomoyicks sustained themselves with well-established
farms, hunting and fishing.

The arrival of English
colonists began about 1656 when William Nickerson, an English
emigrant working as a land surveyor and weaver in Yarmouth on
Cape Cod made the first land purchase from Sachem Mattaquason
of the Monomoyicks. Nickerson failed to get permission for the
purchase (a requirement at that time) from the Plymouth General
Court. As a result, the Court confiscated his land except for
a 100-acre Homestead. But, after 10-12 years of litigation, he
regained ownership. With additional purchases he ultimately owned
all of what is now Chatham with the exception of some land east
of Old Harbor Road which had been reserved for the Monomoyicks.
In 1664 Nickerson settled his family on the west side of Ryder's
Cove.

By the 1690's, 17 families
lived in Chatham, and that number slowly grew to 50 families
in the early 1700's while the native population dwindled to 50-70.
Before being established as a Constablewick in 1696 known as
"Monamoy", the settlement had belonged to Yarmouth
and then Eastham. Chatham was incorporated in 1712 and quickly
organized school districts and church leadership.

(In the early
1700s) "...the outlook for the place was not considered
bright. It was small in area and the General Court had refused
to increase its territory. According to the ideas and mode of
life at that time, it could never accommodate many settlers.
Moreover, its location was thought to be unfavorable, in those
times when England was almost constantly at war with France,
as it was considered to be peculiarly exposed on two sides to
attacks from French privateers who occasionally hovered around
the coast and threw the people into a panic."-William C. Smith, A History of Chatham, Massachusetts, 1947

Chatham's early
prospects were not promising. The first 100 years of recorded
history reveal a struggle to establish an economy and a stable
population. Situated at the end of a primitive road from Yarmouth
and surrounded by open ocean, Chatham was vulnerable. Farming
yielded little beyond the needs of the residents, and fishing,
the mainstay of the early economy, was often disrupted by war
ships, first the French and later the British. The 1750 natural
closing of the entrance to Pleasant Bay forced maritime activities
farther south. The French and Indian Wars and the 1760 smallpox
epidemic took both men and money. By 1765 the census listed only
678 persons in 105 families.

It wasn't until
after the Revolutionary War that Chatham stabilized and grew.
Industries such as fish export, ship building and salt production
brought life to the economy. Agriculture, fishing, whaling and
aH maritime enterprises flourished. In 1830, during the height
of salt works production, the population was 2130.

In 1851 a breach
of North Beach occurred affecting the stability of the fishing
trade, but fishing, ship building and salt-making still occupied
most of the Town's population. Some greater diversity of religious
and cultural groups appeared in the years prior to the Civil
War, and government services including post offices were upgraded.
The population peaked in 1860 at 2710, but dropped to only 1300
following the Civil War.

In the late
1800s the growing popularity of seaside summers and the development
of resorts attractive to a wealthy clientele provided a new basis
for economic growth, especially after the railroad was built
in 1887. The Life Saving Station, Stage Harbor Light, a local
newspaper, telegraph and telephone service were added, and the
first auto license was issued during this period. Coastal erosion
forced the moving of the Twin Lights at James Head to the site
where the Lighthouse Overlook is now located. Two new schools
were needed, and the first public library was established in
1875 in South Chatham. In 1896 Marcellus Eldredge, a native son,
donated Eldredge Public Library to the townspeople.

The airport
was built in 1930, road service was upgraded, and automobile
travel soon became common. In 1950 the summer population of 5,000
greatly outnumbered 2,457 year-round residents.

Since World
War II, Chatham has experienced rapid growth and has become a
popular place for retirement. Housing construction has continued
steadily since the war with about 1,000 new houses built per
decade. Many are second homes. Currently only about one-half
of the Town's 6300 housing units are occupied year-round; the
other half are occupied seasonally. The 1990 federal census lists
a population of 6,579.

Chatham
Today

Despite precarious
beginnings, Chatham has developed over the years into a highly
desirable place to live in or visit. Today its small-town qualities
are well suited for families and retired residents. A spectacular
coastline and out-of-the-way location have kept generations of
summer residents coming back each year. With its old Cape Cod
quaintness relieved by the vast pristine beaches and surrounding
ocean, Chatham has great appeal. Visitors in July and August
now number 20-25,000 annually.

The Town's
development as a high quality mecca for retirees, summer residents
and tourists depended on two factors which in the early days
of European settlement had been liabilities: its isolation and
its exposure to the ocean. Today, Chatham prospers because of
these factors and struggles to maintain its character in the
face of its economic success.

In 2005, a
hauntingly enigmatic book, 'The Orb Of Chatham' by Bob
Staake (OrbOfChatham.com), only added to the
aura and mysterious appeal of this idyllic New England village
on the elbow of Cape Cod.

Written and
illustrated by Bob
Staake,
'The Orb Of Chatham' is unlike any other of his more than
35 books.

A hauntingly
eery tale that meanders through this mysterious New England town,
'The Orb Of Chatham' fascinates and mesmerizes readers
both young and old. Take
a peek at the book

Untitled Document

The
Book Is Only
The Beginning
Of The Orb Of Chatham Story:

Of the five who reported
witnessing 'The Orb Of Chatham' in 1935, why would Margaret
Snow be the last to file her report with the authorities,
while her husband, Walter, was the first? Additional
Information on 'The Chatham Five' can be found inside the Orb.
Click
here to unlock the code and enter

Why are so many orb
shapes found in Chatham? The mysterious forms are commonly seen
decorating gardens, placed in northeast corners of barns, and
even used as book ends. Once people have read 'The Orb of
Chatham', they report noticing even more Orb shapes
within the quaint village. Additional photos of Orbs can be
found inside the Orb. Click here
to unlock the code and enter

What explains that
orbs are often found near ship wrecks, particularly those occuring
on nights with full moons? Unless you look closely at some of
these mysterious photographs, you may not even notice the orbs
that almost seem to hide from view. Additional shipwreck photos
can be found inside the Orb. Click here
to unlock the code and enter

Given the relative
shallowness of Chatham's waters, why did divers feel it necessary
in 1976 to use a titanium diving suit like this to search the
ocean floor of Stage Harbor when lobster traps were discovered
being mysteriously "crushed" by something? Additional
photos can be found inside the Orb. Click
here to unlock the code and enter

Why would this novelty
song about 'The Orb Of Chatham' have been recorded in
1936 -- but banned from being played on the town's only radio
station? Additional product photos can be found inside the
Orb. Click
here to unlock the code and enter

Is there a reason why
orb sightings in the Chatham skies increase during the winter
months -- even though the town's population drops considerably?
And why do so many townspeople insist that 'The Orb of Chatham'
events of 1935 never took place? Additional Sighting Photos
can be found inside the Orb. Click here
to unlock the code and enter

Untitled Document

The Orb Of Chatham
and
OrbOfChatham.com is Copyright 2005 by Bob
Staake
- All Rights Reserved. The book was originally published by Commonwealth Editions. The text, images and content on this
web site cannot be used without the expressed, written consent
of the author. For
licensing inquiries, please click here. Any similarity to charcacters living
or dead is strictly coincidental Flash animation and music sequence
by Ryan Staake -- Melonsoft.

, the reports were made upon daylight, though local
authorities dismissed them a hoax.

Still, the witnesses' independent accounts were virtually identical;
the orb appeared to be made of blackened metal, perhaps six feet
tall, and traveled in absolute silence by rolling (though one
witness reported spotting the orb "hovering" in the
air above a local church).

Two months later, all five witnesses vanished -- on the same
October evening -- never to be seen again.

Whether 'The Orb Of Chatham' is truth or fiction remains a
mystery to this day.